Being shot at by the police in that parking lot, getting taken to jail, getting raided
in that parking lot.
To actually owning that building.
I remember the owner, of the Master Burger use to tell us, he basically wouldn't allow the
members of the community to hang out at all.
He even removed the seats so people had to order their shit and go.
I remember that being young, feeling like, how dare you?
And now he's our tenant.
He pay us rent every month.
Me and Hit-Boy got records we've done in the past I forgot what I came off of, but it was
like just business shit we'd been doing, but we hadn't really been recording like that.
The first record he played me was "Racks In The Middle."
Just the way it dropped, you know the way the drums hit, it sound new, but it was banging.
Roddy tone, automatically, but then what I heard what he was saying I had a song in my
head for it already.
I know that the story he telling, and the place he represent, I know about that place,
I know about that story.
So I understand it.
If you been in a wartime situation, if your community experienced war going on outside.
You know what going back to back feel and sound like.
Cause whether If you was in an area where you had people coming back to back to your
section, you just know multiple incidents.
So I was just referencing an era, in a time in LA when it was an intense moment.
I was goin back to back the I like the area, the community.
I never been one of them people that can be comfortable being careless.
Some people I noticed a quality that they don't have that, they just don't have the
pressure on the themselves, they just have a little bit of a comfort that I don't have.
I don't feel comfortable unless I know I went above and beyond with my preparation. the
The things that possibly could happen.
If I'm ain't take real steps to prevent those things, I'm not comfortable.
I can't walk around charismatic and happy, nah I got to make sure we setting up some
type of wealth, because we might have a little bag right now, but you know a lot of people
had a bag right now, and they ended up bad.
With the Marathon brand, and the clothing operation, it's become a multi-million dollar
business on its own.
So when I say millions off of retail it can apply to the catalog of music that I put out
indie, it could apply to the album that I just put out, it could apply to the brand of Marathon,
or just myself.
Just retail meaning commerce in general.
I knew when I was making Victory Lap that the point I was at in my career I wasn't going
to do nothing else until I felt that I had an album with 14 or 16 great songs.
My whole process was like, when it blow me away I'm going to be ready to move.
When I listened to it top to bottom and I'm like, I get the chills from it and I hear
a person in this music, then I'm going to be ready to go.
So when I heard it I'm like, yeah, it's out of here.
Coming from the rolling 60s.
A community that you can check the stats, you can check the L.A. history.
My section especially is cannibalistic.
You know what I mean?
Feed on their own.
We don't got no body that really made it out from over here.
That was born and raised over here, that walked to the liquor stores, went swimming in the
summer at the parks.
You know rode their bikes through these back streets.
Fought in the back of these buildings.
So you know, the learning curve for the community.
The learning curve for myself.
You know what I mean?
Was very, very intense.
Twelve sound like, you know what I mean, them throwing a book at you, but it's just relative
to what charges is up against you.
Getting 12 out of the situation, and knowing how you was out here moving, you got a sweet
deal, you did alright, you coming home.
You got a date.
Growing up in L.A. you learn that you need guns early.
We always was aware of playing defense, and protecting ourselves, but then I got three
four gun cases, so I don't play like that.
I ain't out here playing with my daughters well-being like that.
I go to jail it's all going to stop.
And it's cheaper to hire the gunman than to pay the bail.
Even if you do beat the case, the bail costs more than the salary, so we just had to start
thinking on them levels.
You see what they're doing to rappers.
You see how they're targeting rappers.
I ain't going to make it easy, you know, we gonna play by the rules.
That's what that's about.
That's a bar.
You know you be in a casino and they bring you liquor?
They help you splurge on that table, and they gonna keep feeding you that liquor.
I was responding to their expectations of rappers.
We going to blow the bag at the luxury boutique, whichever one.
Yeah, that's cool but, this the real bar.
Fatts, that's one of my best friends.
We just had a genuine friendship.
You know what I mean?
And also, one of the people that really believed we could do something else beside gang bang.
I feel terrible that I can't, I'm the one that just get to feel it.
Fatts don't get to feel it.
I was really emotional rapping them lyrics, that's why I said, but I don't wipe them
though, we just embraced on the life we know, 'cause that shit was running down my face
as I'm rapping.
I'm in the studio with Hit-Boy, his girl's in the studio, but it was like, you know,
I felt embarrassed to be tearful in front of people but then I reassure myself that,
with the lyrics we're gonna wipe them though, let that shit flow 'cause that's really from
the heart, you know what I'm saying?
I knew that the record was gonna be powerful, you know when we got them bars out, but it
was like an emotional moment so you can say that shit, you know?
My granny had thirteen pregnancies, and has two kids.
She had eleven miscarriages, from my uncle to my mom.
Almost twelve years pass and she was just telling me like "Imagine if I'd just gave
up on my tenth miscarriage, on my ninth miscarriage."
And I always knew her pregnancy history, that's like a family story she tell.
But I never thought about it like, I wouldn't be here.
You can never repay your mom, your granny, you know what I mean, with material shit,
so I feel you gotta repay them with like, standing up in life, being someone they can
be proud of.
We got a core business, which is for me music.
But then it's about building an enterprise around it, and I think you know, that's what
we see Jay Z has done, that's what we see Puff has done.
The music don't become how you pay the bills, it's a lot of pressure off it.
You got other things bringing in income, you can make music solely as an artist.
Just a visual, I'm speeding, I'm gunning it, and you know, I got the bands right here,
so I just wanted to just circle back to the theme and the concept, you know.
I used it as a theme, and revolved around it for the most of the verse, but I wanted
to bring it back to literally riding round in a V12 with the racks in the middle to end
it out, you know what I'm saying?